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Depth: 5'2"

Submitted by domesticat on 17 March 2012 - 4:13pm

Admitting you’re in over your head is hard. It hurts. I don’t know anyone who enjoys it, and I don’t know any fellow perfectionists who can do it without feeling a great deal of shame, hesitation, or remorse.

This afternoon, I admitted that I was in over my head, and I pulled out a recommendation I’ve been sitting on for months — I called a professional housecleaning service, and have an appointment with the owner after I get back from my conference. We’re going to go over what parts of the house I could realistically ask a third-party service to clean, and if the cost is reasonable … bite the bullet, swallow my pride, and do it.

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Epic, chilly journey

Submitted by domesticat on 19 February 2012 - 12:18pm

Yesterday, in sewing terms, was nothing short of an epic journey. I had to check my last.fm account to see a tally of exactly what the final answer was (the question, of course, being, “What do I have to do to finish this quilt top this weekend?”) —

4 episodes of the Splendid Table (200 min total)
1 episode of WireTap (26 min)
1 episode of On Being (50 min)
4 episodes of Trust Inc (112 min total)
1 episode of Marketplace (27 min each)
1 episode of The World’s ‘tech’ podcast (16 min)

431 minutes, or just over 7 hours. I had joked about treating Saturday like a workday, except a workday devoted to fabric instead of software troubleshooting, and I think it’s safe to say I actually followed through on my jest.

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Remember me? I live here

Submitted by domesticat on 7 February 2012 - 10:21pm

It has been a hectic few months. Travel enough and you have this constant, vague sense of displacement; wake up, and you wonder for a moment, where am I today? You are frequently a timezone ahead, or a flight behind, or some combination of the two, and every hotel room has an alarm clock that works in a slightly different way.

I am trying to get back into the rhythm of life-at-home. I am trying to learn to pace myself on weekdays, to leave time for therapy and other things, and to cook mightily on weekends. A couple of crockpots full of food on a weekend makes a much saner week.

I am — solitary, these days. I am aware that I really need to get out, maybe work from a coffeeshop for a half day or so, maybe see a movie on a weekend, but the truth is that I've had so few home hours in the past month or so that I'm just not ready to emerge yet. I know I should suggest to Jeff that he get out of the house, even if I'm not ready to just yet.

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Mitzvah

Submitted by domesticat on 8 January 2012 - 4:34pm

Date:

15 August 2011 - 11 May 2012

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157628780181157

Recipient:

Mellbergs

Pattern:

Double wedding ring

Level of completion:

Completed and given away

Blog entries referencing this quilt:

Epic, chilly journey

Stick with me here. You’ll read the first few paragraphs here and wonder how in the world this is going to have a happy ending, but … it does. I promise.

* * *

I have struggled to name this quilt, as well as to write about it. It goes without saying that 2011, thanks to Jeff’s accident, was … hell, let’s pick a few adjectives:

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9 comments

Room reboot #1: office

Submitted by domesticat on 2 January 2012 - 1:17pm

Scott, bless him, offered to come up for a few days around New Year's, and we've been busy creatures during that time. The New Job™ means I work out of the house, but the bad part? I didn't really have a good workspace for me, my phone, and my laptop.

We needed to fix that, but doing so meant that we needed to tear down not one but TWO corner desks, combine two computers into a single work station, put in shelving, and blah and meow and etc.

Good news: we're mostly done.

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